Gulf War Illnesses Linked To Chemicals

U.s. Doctor Backs Complaints

January 22, 1997|By THOMAS D. WILLIAMS; Courant Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Preliminary studies show that ``virtually all'' the Persian Gulf War veterans who were near a chemical weapons bunker blown up in 1991 have symptoms of illness, a federal agency doctor testified Tuesday at a congressional hearing.

The testimony from Dr. Frances Murphy, a supervisor in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, marked the first time federal authorities have formally acknowledged veterans' health probably was harmed by chemical weapons.

The gulf war veterans studied included 81 members of a demolition team that blew up an Iraqi weapons bunker in Khamisiyah in March 1991, and others who were within 50 kilometers of the explosions. Members of the demolition team have significantly higher rates of muscle and bone problems than the general veteran population, a VA study shows.

Murphy was one of several witnesses at Tuesday's hearing before the House Subcommittee on Human Resources and Intergovernmental Relations, chaired by U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays, R-4th District.

During the hearing, Shays repeatedly criticized Murphy and her supervisor, Dr. Kenneth W. Kizer, for avoiding direct answers to his questions about the VA's failure to diagnose, treat or investigate veterans who said they were exposed to chemical weapons fallout and other chemical hazards of the war.

Kizer, the VA's undersecretary of health, denied the department had failed to properly collect health data from veterans on their low-level exposures to chemical warfare. He blamed the U.S. Department of Defense for its years of failure to report potential exposures of military personnel to low-level chemical weapons.

Murphy said the VA had surveyed the agency's registry for 21,799 veterans who were in the vicinity of the explosions and discovered that of those who either were on the weapons demolition team or within 50 kilometers of the site, ``virtually all have symptoms'' of illness. Troops who were outside the 50- kilometer radius have much lower rates of illness, she said.

Last year, the Defense Department conceded that more than 20,000 troops may have been exposed to chemical weapons fallout after U.S. soldiers demolished the enemy munitions dump filled with chemical rockets.

The rockets contained sarin, a nerve gas that can kill; low-level exposures can cause serious illnesses. Scientists disagreewhether the gas can create long- term neurological illnesses and diminished brain capacity.

In another fresh disclosure at Tuesday's hearing, a Defense Department spokesman testified that the department is actively investigating who might have destroyed or concealed military nuclear, biological and chemical logs. Many unit logs, including logs from the Central Command, are missing. The Defense Department has admitted others have been destroyed.

The logs were contained on computers in Saudi Arabia and both the disks and the hard-drive equipment are missing, said Dr. Bernard Rostker, the department's special assistant for gulf war illnesses.

Veterans' advocates have asked the Justice Department to appoint an independent counsel to investigate alleged criminal wrongdoing in the disappearance of the logs and other military documents. The department has rejected the request and, instead, turned it over to its integrity section.

The logs are considered important because they can pinpoint where many soldiers were when they may have been exposed to hazardous chemicals or to other health hazards, such as bacteria or oil well fires. Some of the Central Command and other unit logs reviewed by The Courant in 1994 show some reported episodes of supposed chemical fallout and of several instances in which soldiers may have been exposed to bacteria.

``We are looking to see if [the logs] were lost, and we're looking to trace their accountability with a lawyer [who is investigating] through verbatim testimony,'' Rostker said. ``We are not sure all the pages were ever printed out.''

Rostker added that the 36 pages of Central Command logs that do exist are ``extremely interesting'' and corroborate the Czech Army's detections of chemical warfare agents and testimony about other potential chemical exposures.

For more than five years, Pentagon and CIA officials denied that any of the war's 697,000 U.S. troops had been exposed to chemical or biological weapons. During congressional hearings in 1993 and 1994, scores of soldiers said they believed they had been exposed to chemical and, perhaps, biological weapons. As many as 100,000 gulf war troops have complained of a variety of illnesses including cancer, heart and neurological diseases and such symptoms as joint and stomach pain, short-term memory loss, headaches and skin rashes.

It was not until late last year that the Defense Department first confirmed the potential exposures of troops at Khamisiyah, although documents showed scores of officials had been notified about the event in written military communications.

Tuesday, the VA supplied several charts detailing its survey of troops who were in the vicinity when the Iraqi chemical rockets were destroyed.

The VA charts showed that the demolition soldiers on site were more likely than other gulf war troops to have infectious diseases, cancer, disorders of the genitals, skin diseases and especially muscular and connective tissue disorders.